Wisdom of Secular Accomplishments?

Wisdom or Secular Accomplishments? 

What is age since the numbers only represent individuals!

That may not be the answer for everyone since each person must accept the consciousness of where we have been and are going to be through life.

Reflecting back at my ordination; June 8, 1974, I had just turned 38.  No way could I imagine what that ministry would present to me as the Church was beginning to take hold of me and allowed different aspects of the needs people were looking for through the Eucharist and how Christ used me and other ministers to spread the kingdom.  It was an honor to be chosen by Christ to become an ordained minister and follow his mission through the sacred hands of my bishop.  As I reach my birthdate of May 16, 1936, I am in his arms as I continue with my ministry.    

The one attribute that was a sign that still encompasses my years of ministry was the answer at a Miraculous Medal prayer Mass in 1960.  As I was looking through the booklet for the novena and questioned what to pray for, a woman’s voice spoke to my heart and said, “Why not ask for Wisdom?”  I did and soon after began attending morning Mass of which I seemed to avoid before this evening.

It is here that the revelation of what really has become my total addressing of what age, ministry, and the needs of those I have been a minister for is the very wisdom I prayed for in 1960. 

I have learned, as most ministers should, that it isn’t money, higher education, notoriety, or even presentations for accomplishments that mean a lot for many people.  Solomon brought these attributes to a head when he wrote Ecclesiastes and found that everything is vanity.  Some of the headings he addressed are:” Vanity of Toil without profit, Vanity of many words, and the test of seeking that which does mean nothing to be proud of.”

What has become my most ardent success for 90 years is the wisdom of God that we cannot buy, earn, or even relegate through human actions.  It is the presence of God and how we tend to get closer to the essence of God, not to be able to write or speak for anyone to follow; it is the very understanding that God calls us to and then shares through an unknown entity that can only be found as something beyond the finiteness of man.

Wisdom was with God when he created everything.  Wisdom is with Christ when he died to forgive us for our sins.  Wisdom is with us through the grace that the Holy Spirit endows on us to follow the Son of God from Incarnation to Ascension.  Wisdom is God in his total existence from everlasting to everlasting.  Wisdom is the one attribute that identifies who God is and seeks to bring you and I into the very existence of God and the only manner that we can find what really is Holy by allowing ourselves to be absorbed in his presence.  

I now understand what the Mother of God told me to ask for Wisdom, has become my mantra and my total renunciation of earthly possessions over spiritual entities.  To those who take the time to accumulate wealth, higher educational positions, or the honor at special events of honor in lieu of what God has for those who will seek them; the glory of the eternal kingdom might just become a “it could have been me.”

Ralph B. Hathaway